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    Extraordinary
    Aaron Bare facilitating a strategy session

    We know the stack. We can read the room.

    We build the strategic systems and software (websites, software, apps) that earn attention. One team, one price, no add-on invoices, and you own the machine.

    Talk to Forbes

    We do one thing extraordinary

    Communicate your message in a way that gets you attention.

    Every engine we install — brand, media, growth, comms, and incentives — points back to that. We make your message impossible to ignore outside the company, repeatable inside it, and rewarding to act on.

    The scale

    From talking at people to creating with them.

    01

    Talk

    One voice. One message. One direction.

    02

    Train

    Teach the idea so your team can repeat it.

    03

    Facilitate

    Draw the message out of the room, together.

    04

    Improv

    Respond in real time. Make the moment land.

    Secret weapon

    The payoff

    Comedy is our secret weapon.

    Because if you can make a room laugh, you can make them listen, remember, and move. That is the Extraordinary edge.

    Why we exist

    Everything got added. Nothing got decided.

    47 PRIORITIESONE

    Track record

    20+

    Years of experience

    500+

    Companies worked with

    100+

    Countries worked in

    12

    Companies built and sold

    Five engines. One ecosystem. Six months.

    Brand, media, and growth earn attention. Comms aligns your external message with your internal culture. Incentives turn that alignment into action.

    See how it installs

    The team

    Three operators, one accountable team.

    Aaron Bare, founder of Extraordinary

    Aaron Bare

    Founder · Strategy, Innovation and AI Implementation

    Aaron sets the positioning and architects the systems. Twenty years facilitating strategy in Fortune 500 rooms, governments, and founder-led companies across 100+ countries.

    • BooksSix, one system
    • Companies sold12
    • XPRIZEWinner
    • Recognition30 Under 30 · 40 Under 40 · 50 Under 50 NYC · Titan 100
    Forbes Shannon, partner at Extraordinary

    Forbes Shannon

    Partner · Production, Narrative, and Storytelling

    Forbes runs story and media. The person who turns a founder's point of view into a publishing engine.

    • Books written25+
    • Bestsellers5
    • Co-authorExponential Theory
    • Companies exited2
    Christine Butler, editor in chief at Extraordinary

    Christine Butler

    Editor in Chief

    Christine runs the words. Every story, script, and newsletter passes her desk before it earns the Extraordinary name.

    • RoleEditor in Chief
    • DeskStory, scripts, newsletter
    • StandardEvery word earns it

    Join the bench

    You join our agency. That's where the fun begins — and the ordinary ends.

    If you are technically brilliant and somehow funny, there is a seat with your name on it.

    See open rolesBook a call

    Careers · 53 open seats

    Fun leaders, not the only team members.

    Three names sit out front. Behind them is a deep bench of writers, editors, producers, engineers, SEO and AEO nerds, designers and improvisers who install the engines. If you are technically brilliant and somehow funny, there is a seat.

    No boring meetings. No resume theater. One link and one funny line is the whole application.

    Media

    Podcast producer

    Own the calendar, the guests and the tape from booking to publish.

    Part-time · Phoenix or remote

    View role

    Growth

    SEO lead

    Own technical, on-page and topical authority across client sites.

    Full-time · Phoenix or remote

    View role

    Growth

    CRO analyst

    Test, read the data honestly, kill the pretty thing that loses.

    Contract · Remote

    View role

    Comms

    Copy chief

    Guard the voice. Cut the word count. Keep it cheeky.

    Full-time · Remote

    View role

    Comms

    Editor

    Make everyone else look smarter than their first draft.

    Contract · Remote

    View role

    Comms

    Community host

    Run the weekly Extraordinary Friends call and introduce people on purpose.

    Part-time · Remote

    View role

    Platform

    AI engineer

    Agents and pipelines that make the work more human, not less.

    Full-time · Remote

    View role

    Studio

    Improv coach

    Teach executives to listen, yes-and, and stop reading slides.

    Contract · Phoenix or remote

    View role

    Do not see your thing?

    Life is too short to be ordinary, and job titles are made up anyway. Pitch us the role you should have.

    House rules

    Our only rule: have fun.

    Technical excellence gets the machinery running. Fun gets people to notice, remember, share, and come back. We measure laughs per minute like other agencies measure impressions.

    • No boring meetings. If we cannot make it fun, we make it shorter.

    • Laughs per minute is a real KPI here.

    • Improv everything. Yes, and.

    • Move the internet in your favor.

    Why be boring? Life's too short to be ordinary.

    Who we are

    We are builders. Facilitators. Executors. And we laugh.

    We are nerds who know how to make you laugh. Technical brilliance gets the machinery running. The facilitation, the doing, and the laughter make it actually work. One without the others is just noise.

    1. 01

      Builders

      We install the engines: brand, media, growth, comms, incentives. Technically brilliant, owned by you, no duct tape.

    2. 02

      Facilitators

      We draw the answer out of the room instead of reading one at it. The strategy comes from your people, sharpened by ours.

    3. 03

      Executors

      Not deadly. We get shit done. On cadence, in your accounts, with a dashboard that tells the truth.

    4. 04

      And we laugh

      Smart people can laugh. If you can make a room laugh, you can make them listen, remember, and move. That is the edge.

    100
    checkpoints in our own scan, run on us weekly
    20+
    years shipping code, not slide decks
    500+
    leaders interviewed on camera
    1
    monthly comedy show, ours, real stage

    We are nerds who know how to make you laugh.

    Deeply technical, weirdly funny. We read the docs, the logs and the room.

    Our unique selling proposition

    We're not the agency that does everything.

    We're the agency that figures out the few things worth doing.

    Strategy + Creativity + AI + Execution + Measurement

    to make those things work unusually well.

    • We don't sell hours.
    • We don't sell deliverables.
    • We don't sell acronyms.

    We sell attention.

    But not attention for attention's sake.

    Attention that turns into trust.

    Trust that turns into relationships.

    Relationships that turn into growth.

    And we do it without forgetting that on the other side of every click, impression, lead and conversion is an actual human being.

    We sell focus that compounds into growth.

    Why “Extraordinary”?

    Because ordinary marketing is everywhere.

    • Ordinary websites.
    • Ordinary emails.
    • Ordinary LinkedIn posts.
    • Ordinary AI-generated content.
    • Ordinary agencies making ordinary ads for ordinary brands while sitting in meetings discussing how to increase engagement with their latest ordinary campaign.

    The world has enough content.

    It has enough advertising.

    It has enough noise.

    It doesn't need more marketing.

    It needs something worth paying attention to.

    That's our job.

    • Make you clearer.
    • Make you more interesting.
    • Make you easier to find.
    • Make you easier to trust.
    • Make you easier to buy.
    • Make you feel more human.

    And then use technology to make the whole thing compound.

    Our founding thesis

    Personality is personal reality

    In the age of AI, being human is the unfair advantage.

    AI is already above average. It can write above-average copy, make above-average ads, build above-average websites, create above-average strategies, and produce an infinite amount of perfectly acceptable content. And that is exactly the problem.

    Average is becoming free. Extraordinary cannot be prompted into existence.

    Why founders

    Apple doesn't need us to give it a personality. It already has billions of dollars, decades of brand equity, and global distribution. We work with founder-led growth companies because they have something far more interesting: a human.

    A founder with a point of view. A strange story. Contradictions. Scars. Obsessions. Failures. Bad decisions. Inside jokes. Unpopular opinions. Hard-earned wisdom. And a reason they started the damn company in the first place. That is the brand.

    We believe your personality creates your personal reality. And increasingly, it creates your company's reality too.

    What AI cannot do

    AI can imitate your words. It cannot have your childhood. It cannot get its heart broken. It cannot bomb onstage. It cannot lose someone it loves. It cannot laugh until it can't breathe. It cannot spend ten years being wrong and discover something nobody else understands.

    It can learn the pattern. It cannot live the source.

    What wins next

    The next unforgettable company won't win because its content is more polished. It will win because someone feels something when they encounter it. The same is true of the next great book, movie, movement, speech, brand, or idea.

    Greatness comes from the messy collision of being alive: suffering and joy, embarrassment and triumph, heartbreak and laughter, shitty moments and beautiful ones. Not perfection. Personality.

    What we build

    That's why Extraordinary is built for founders. We don't want AI to replace the founder. We use AI to amplify the human.

    We find the stories, ideas, beliefs, language, experiences, and beautiful weirdness that could only belong to you. Then we build the media, systems, technology, distribution, and AI around them so your humanity can scale without being sanitized out of the business.

    Because when everyone has the same AI, the differentiator isn't the machine. It's the human behind it.

    AI can make you above average. Only you can make you extraordinary.

    DON'T DIE ORDINARY.

    Personality is everything

    What agency has a comedy show?

    We run the engines on ourselves first. A live variety comedy show in Tempe, a podcast with 500+ leaders in the chair, and a weekly online meetup where we introduce people, laugh, and solve real problems on the spot. That is not marketing. That is Friday.

    • The comedy show

      Arizona After Dark

      Monthly live variety comedy in Tempe, hosted by Aaron Bare and Forbes Shannon. 33 shows produced and counting. Clients get invited, get a seat, and get the after party. Kickoff meetings should be this fun.

      See the show
    • The podcast

      Extraordinary Stories

      Real conversations with founders and leaders, produced in our own studio. The Media Engine, running live, on us.

      Hear the episodes
    • The weekly meetup

      Extraordinary Friends

      Every week, online. We introduce people who should know each other, laugh a lot, and solve problems live for clients and future clients.

      Join the next one

    Show night · Tempe

    Aaron Bare working a packed room at Arizona After Dark
    Packed house. Again.
    Improv scene with audience volunteers on stage at the comedy show
    That's a client on stage.
    Forbes Shannon hosting the room at Arizona After Dark
    Forbes, mid-bit
    Aaron Bare laughing on stage with a microphone
    Yes, that's the strategist
    Aaron and Forbes taking a bow after a sketch
    The bow. Earned.
    Aaron Bare covering his face laughing on stage
    Our reaction to your tech stack
    Forbes Shannon and Aaron Bare deadpan at the after party
    After party. Deadly serious.

    Our clients come to the monthly show. Front row, drink in hand, occasionally dragged on stage. Then the after party, where the real work gets talked about and nobody says the word synergy.

    Why be boring? Life's too short to be ordinary.

    Arizona After Dark · 33 shows produced · Last Friday of the month · Tempe, Arizona

    What we believe

    Three things we will not argue about.

    Attention is the scarce resource

    Human beings are the audience. Growth is the outcome. Everything else is a tool.

    Own it, don't rent it

    We build in your accounts and hand over the keys. Terrible business model, great partnership model.

    Engines beat campaigns

    Campaigns spike and die. Position, Capture, Nurture, Convert, Compound. Repeat.

    Receipts

    Who we built for, in their own words.

    • Brandon Barnum

      CEO, HOA.com

      On building partnerships that compound

    • Forbes Shannon

      Co-founder, Extraordinary

      On the mission and the work behind it

    • Daymond John

      Shark on Shark Tank · Founder of FUBU

      On the power of the work for founders

    • Digital strategy and community impact

      Greater Phoenix Urban League

      Mission-driven digital outreach.

      Outreach expansion
      CitywideOutreach expansion
      Aligned messaging
      MissionAligned messaging
      Read the build

    • Design thinking and web development

      WHHS Healthcare

      $750K digital transformation in healthcare.

      Project value
      $750KProject value
      Patient engagement lift
      40%Patient engagement lift
      HIPAA compliance
      100%HIPAA compliance
      Digital adoption rate
      3xDigital adoption rate
      Read the build

    • Live events and community

      Arizona After Dark

      Comedy, community, and culture, live.

      Shows produced
      29Shows produced
      Community members
      2,500+Community members
      Curated nightlife
      21+Curated nightlife
      Sponsor partnership
      LOL BeerSponsor partnership
      Read the build
    See the whole record

    Work with us

    Bring us something worth building.

    Talk to Forbes

    Thirty minutes, no pitch deck, straight answers.

    See the work